The 22 June 2005 Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing contains e-mails Abramoff sent to his brothers and associates in crime including Ralph Reed, a man that Abramoff and Michael Scanlon thought “was overcharging them.” Senatorial Courtesy Will John McCain Let Republican Perps Walk? By Lou Dubose [ 26 August 2005 The Texas Observer ]
“I’d like to know what the hell he spent it on—he didn’t even know the dam [sic] thing was there—and didn’t do shit to shut it down,” wrote Scanlon of a Texas casino. “I agree. He is a bad version of us!” replied Abramoff, adding “no more money for him.” McCain has shown no interest in calling Reed to testify.
According to Ari Berman in The Real McCain [ 12 December 2005 The Nation ]
Throughout his career, McCain has rarely talked about social issues or paid lip service to the religious right–prompting activists to question his devotion. “Some point to his record on pro-life issues and other questions and they say he really is acceptable,” says evangelical leader Paul Weyrich, an influential founder of the modern conservative movement. “Others point to his reaction after the South Carolina primary and feel that underneath he is hostile.” The bottom line? “I could not support him for President.” Weyrich estimates that 60 percent of social conservative leaders feel the same way. “Social conservatives are the majority of the boots on the ground,” says the Rev. Richard Land, a close Bush ally and director of the evangelical Southern Baptist Convention. “If fiscal conservatives and neocons and libertarians want to test that theory, they’re in for an electoral debacle.”
Recent history, however, isn’t nearly that clear. Many religious-right leaders supported fringe candidates like John Ashcroft, Steve Forbes and Alan Keyes before rallying around Bush in 2000. McCain even won the endorsement of evangelical leader Gary Bauer after he promised to appoint only antiabortion judges. “I admire the religious right for the dedication and zeal they put into the political process,” McCain told Larry King recently. If he’s not making an outright play for the social conservative vote, McCain is certainly trying to blunt their dislike of him–hence his recent positions on intelligent design and gay marriage in Arizona, and his sit-down with Falwell. “McCain doesn’t need to get majority support of the social conservatives, just a portion,” says John Pitney, a government expert at Claremont McKenna College. “Bush 41 was not a favorite of social conservatives in 1988, but he had enough support to get through.”
Brian Lamb on Washington Journal [ 6 January 2006 ] introduced the question – what’s the point of returning the money – implying that contributors who donated more recently would be short-shrifted, then taking a caller’s cue that the Indians would lose any influence their monies might have bought, agreeing their opinion should be solicited.
I’m wondering, what’s the point of George returning a mere $6K, why is McCain still Chairman of this committee…
The White House couldn’t ignore the broadening scope of McCain’s investigation. Abramoff had raised $300,000 for Bush, been invited to a funders’ thank-you at a ranch near the President’s Crawford ranch (declined because he doesn’t travel on the Jewish Sabbath), served on Bush’s transition team in 2000, and had been to the White House on numerous occasions after Bush was elected. According to a source who has been interviewed by the FBI, Abramoff told tribal clients that he met regularly with Karl Rove, who insisted on meeting outside the White House so Abramoff’s name wouldn’t appear in public records. Norquist was selling casino Indians face time with President Bush for $25,000 a head. Bush’s Secretary of the Interior was changing Indian policy to accommodate Abramoff, at the request of DeLay and Speaker Denny Hastert. The scandal that started on K Street reached south toward Pennsylvania Avenue.
On November 17, 2004, McCain was called over to meet with the President, according to information provided by a Senate committee staffer. Regardless of the topic, the timing of the visit was a powerful message: the morning of the last Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on the lobbying scandal chaired by Nighthorse Campbell. McCain would not confirm the meeting. He later reassured his Republican Senate colleagues that he will not pursue members of Congress and would limit his investigation to the lobbyists and their money. Recently, he has demonstrated a reluctance to follow the money trail to power centers in the Congress, the White House, and his party.
…and why is the blatant racism of these players being allotted the feeblest of notations by the MSM?
…e-mails in which Abramoff and Scanlon called their Indian clients “monkeys,” “troglodytes,” and “morons”…
Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy:
….according to Senate testimony and news reports in Newsweek and The New Republic, Abramoff sent a note to Ben-Zvi; one of the settlers saying “Thanks brother. If only there were another dozen of you the dirty rats would be finished.” He was referring to Palestinians living around Beitar Illit. Payments were partially run through “Kollel Ohel Tiferet,” an entity not publicly listed or traceable.
Indians and Palestinians weren’t the only targets in Abramoff’s sites. He and Reed were in the talking stages for an insurance scam meant to defraud dying Black Christians:
In the summer before his Indian lobbying enterprise collapsed, Abramoff found another niche market to which the evangelical Reed could connect him: dying African-American Christians. If Reed could, as he promised Abramoff in an e-mail, deliver 85,000 Christian voters,” Abramoff must have assumed he could deliver enough dying black Christians to create a new revenue stream. In July 2003, Abramoff e-mailed Reed regarding “Black Churches Insurance program.”
“Per our previous discussion. Let me know how we can move forward to chat with folks who can set this up with African American elders. It can be huge.” Reed replied that it looked interesting and urged that they meet in D.C. as a next step.
A futures market that commodifies the waning lives of elder Black Christians. Who says this isn’t a great country?
McCain should resign as Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee or be removed and “journalists” like James Taranto should broaden their scope beyond affirmative action when looking for reasons “a system that aims for equality of result (but) cannot deliver it.” The Truth About Race in America–IV [ 6 January 2006 Wall Street Journal ]